V - the Visitors

Prologue (1 of 3)

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Detroit, 1983.

In the course of their investigations the detectives Anderson and Reed have driven to a tiny loading dock at the Detroit river. Here they take a break for a quick snack. One of them, at least.

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Gavin: “You sure you don‘t want anything? Could be a long afternoon today…”

Hank: “I’ll eat when real food becomes available again. Meat, boy!”

Gavin: “Fish is meat.”

Hank: “Hell, no! Even vegetarians eat fish! Such a pity I got paired with an upright walking cat instead of with a human!”

Gavin: “I won’t argue with you while your twin watches over you. Two against one isn’t fair!”

Hank: “Twin…?”

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Following Gavin’s gaze, Hank looks over his shoulder. Then both men laugh.

Hank: “Oh, Gavin… never change!”

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Hank watches his co-worker snack on his fish sandwich, occasionally casting a casual gaze over the dock or into the sky. The air is flickering, what is strange, because it isn’t that hot today.

Hank flinches…

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Gavin: “Huh? For a moment I thought I’d seen… something. In the sky. But it’s only the seagulls.”

Hank: “Nah. I wasn’t sure myself, but now that you noticed it, too, I realize that there is indeed something odd up about the sky.”

Gavin: “In case of a concealed UFO, how far upwards exactly does the DPD’s jurisdiction reach?”

Hank: “I dunno. But I know I’m going to clamp the suckers the moment they land somewhere they shouldn’t!”

Gavin: “And for real? What do you think is causing this? Pest Control Supply & Co. releasing their waste into the environment again, maybe?”

Hank: “Yeah, sounds about right.”

Prologue (2 of 3)

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Hank and Gavin cannot know that their joke is actually the truth. An alien capital ship has entered Earth’s atmosphere and is about to drop its cloaking device in a coordinated effort with forty-nine others.

From a faraway star system these visitors may come, but they look human. Even the smiles they exchange and their nervousness gestures when faced with their difficult task are astonishingly similar to Homo sapiens’.
The only noticeable difference is the red light that fills the bridge. The lamps radiating it are installed here solely for warmth and therefore energy. The crew’s eyes, despite these beings being tetrachromates, have lost the red cone. To them red appears white.

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Simon: “Approaching the east coast of the You Essay. Preparing for landfill…”

Markus: “I hope not.”

Simon: “Huh? Oh, I see. Preparing for landFALL… All systems are perfectly in sync with the rest of the fleet.”

Josh: “Same goes for the communication channels, Captain. If we wanted, we could play a fleetwide game of Bingo.”

Markus: “Good! Simon - activate the extravehicular cameras!”

…

Markus: “Simon…?”

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Markus: “That’s you, Lieutenant!”

Simon: “Oh! Ah… sorry. I should get used to getting called by a human name, right? Ssssimon. My name is Simon.”

Markus: “What’s our ship’s name in human speech?”

Simon: “The Jericho! How could I forget that?!”

Markus: “Your priorities are weird, Lieutenant. Let us see some landscape now!”

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When the Jericho’s external cameras capture the first impressions of Earth, the whole bridge crew gasps audibly. It’s a windy day, and the waves crash on the shores of Lake Erie forcefully. The majesty of the display is not lost to the visitors, but because they function very similar to humans mentally, the first bridge officer already start joking to conceal just how deeply touched they are:

North: “Get out the floaties, guys, this is a planetwide beach resort!”

Josh: “According to the humans’ lore, these are called “lakes”. Imagine! All this water, and those barbarians say Oh, that, yeah, that’s just a lake!”

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Markus: “All this water…”

Simon: “And food!”

Markus: “Huh? Where?”

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Simon: “One moment… I’m zooming in as close as possible… There!”

North: “Aw, now you’ve made me hungry!”

Markus: “Haha! Leave it to us to approach a new planet and immediately locate a pizza delivery person! That’s why we’re the best ship in this fleet!”

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Simon: “So what do you say, Captain? Should we go down right here?”

Markus: “Of course! Not even a question!”

Simon: “And the pool floaties, haha? I don’t think we brought any.”

Markus: “You can’t tell me the humans haven’t invented the most natural object for people living at the sea? I bet they have beach equipment that we never dreamed of! Soon as we get shore leave, there’ll be an epic shopping spree!”

Prologue (3 of 3)

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And so the Jericho dropped her cloaking device right over Detroit…

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Hank: “I see seagulls and… some kind of jellyfish.”

Gavin: “Jellyfish. Right. Totally a five mile diameter jellyfish.”

…

Gavin: “Hank?”

Hank: “Yes, Gavin?”

Gavin: “I think I’m not that fond of seafood anymore.”

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Not just the humans were shocked at the sight of the UFO, the vessel’s Captain, too, was in for a surprise.

John: “Jericho! What was that just now? You were instructed to assume hovering position over New York! However, our grid shows you over Detroit!”

Markus: “NY is at the ocean, Sir. Salt water. Detroit has access to the Great Lakes and superior trade lines. Plus, the Jericho will cover two human countries in this spot.”

John: “Neither of that excuses your solo action, Captain! What would you tell the Great Thinker, if they asked you about this?”

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Markus: “Well, that’s the beauty of our leader: being aptly titled. They think and would see my point.”

John: “Well, and I think that was one insubordination too much, Lieutenant Markus. The “Jericho” is to remain in her spot, we’ll send someone more reliable to New York. And you will prepare for the arrival of a new Captain to take over.”

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Markus: “Oh, plum…”

Simon: “I’m unfamiliar with that word.”

Markus: “It’s not generally taught to personnel. The Supreme Leader fears we might use it in front of the humans.”

Simon: “Sounds like a word that will make anybody NOT using it a lot stand out like a gecko in heat in a wheatfield.”

Markus: “Stick out like a sore thumb.”

Simon: “Huh?”

Markus: “You did it again. You translated a saying literally when there is a perfectly valid english phrase you could have used instead.”

Simon: “I did? Oh, plum!”

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And so the Visitors had come to stay. After the initial confusion, followed by a public meeting between Supreme Commander John and the United Nations Secretary-General, the two species tentatively got to know each other. The aliens immediately buying Belle Isle from the city of Detroit tarnished their reputation a little, but then again, the arrivals acting like rich tourists that could buy their way through town made them relatable. They even wore sunglasses all the time…

Because of the purchase, Detroit now had access to Visitor currency and vis a vis. It was deemed a good start.

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Amanda: “My name is Amanda, I’m the Captain of the Detroit Mothership. This here is Lt. Markus, my right hand. The other Motherships boast about how much they can do for you "Earthlings", which is true, of course, but after our journey we’re also very excited to learn about local customs and just relax.
We’re looking forwards to learning from each other. I’m sure we can do great things together, things we never dared dreaming of individually!”

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Amanda’s words became the Detroit Mothership’s official slogan and got replicated on thousands of posters. They were for sale same as action figures of Amanda and Markus.

A week later Markus and the Jericho's bridge crew were found drunk and stripped almost bare in a back alley but still remained steadfast in their conviction that coming to Detroit had been the right decision. They treated their stay as an exotic vacation that they enjoyed every minute of.

Humans and Visitors - united in consumerism first, curiosity second. It wasn’t what the movies had trained the people of Earth to expect from a first contact with aliens. But under the hood things weren’t as nice as on the surface, because nobody suspected that there might be a Visitors Vs. Visitors conflict ongoing…

I was at school when the original V and V The Final Battle aired on TV. It's one of my favourite science fiction shows of all time so you've got me interested from the get go. Will you have cameos from some of the original characters like Martin Donovan, Ham Tyler, Diana or Julie? Simon is a good nod to Willy from the TV show with his malaprops.

"Kellogg_J_Kellogg;c-18112397" wrote:
I was at school when the original V and V The Final Battle aired on TV. It's one of my favourite science fiction shows of all time so you've got me interested from the get go.

I'm an 80s kid, too, but I caught V only later on VHS and immediately went on from Final Battle to the TV series. It'll always be an important part of my teen years.

"Kellogg_J_Kellogg;c-18112397" wrote:
Will you have cameos from some of the original characters like Martin Donovan, Ham Tyler, Diana or Julie? Simon is a good nod to Willy from the TV show with his malaprops.

I considered that, but I have a very bad track record of not knowing where to stop when creating franchise characters. If I made a Tyler sim, I'd also feel the need to add Faber, for Mike I'd "need" his mom, Sean, Tony, Marten... That's why I decided to keep canon characters' appearances off screen. Ham Tyler The Starchild

Chapter 1: Friends of the Visitors (& fish)

There were two things every government had trouble keeping indoors when aliens came knocking at the door: The army and the children.
After “The Visitors” - so far they hadn’t revealed the name they called themselves by collectively, if any - had arrived at Earth, they tended to leave the armies to the local rulers, but reached out to the children. In the fifty cities that had Motherships hovering in geostationary orbit, the aliens founded “Friends of the Visitors” groups that worked not unlike scouts groups.

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The Detroit/Windsor chapter met at Belle Isle Aquarium. At first it was only a tiny group consisting of no more than six regular attendees. One of those was Police Lt. Anderson’s son, Cole.
The group’s supervisor was the spitting image of Lt. Simon and was in fact that one’s sibling, although not twin, a fact that was baffling every human who saw Daniel and Simon together. How could two men who were neither twins nor clones look near identical?! However, once you talked the duo for some time, Daniel’s age advantage over Simon’s became apparent. They could both be adorably goofy at times when confronted with human customs, but Daniel was drawing on a richer life experience than Simon.

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Daniel: “There the human children come. Alice? Promise you won’t hide in the alligator tank again!”

Alice: “P… p… promise…”

Daniel: “Hello, my name is Daniel, I’m the Detroit Mothership’s Youth Corps Leader. What is a fancy name for a nanny. And these here are Alice and Eustace.”

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Cole: “There are baby visitors?!”

Eustace: “Call me a baby again and I’ll toss you into the alligator tank!”

Daniel: “Threaten another kid again and I’ll show them photos of you as a baby!”

Eustace: “You’re bluffing, Daniel! You mustn’t do that, Amanda wouldn’t allow it! - But just for your information, little human, I was an adorable infant! Were you, too?”

Cole: “I don’t know. But on my baby photo I’m on a polar bear pelt!”

Eustace: “…you win.”

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Daniel: “Alice and Eustace were born during our journey. They’ve never been on a planet before.”

Emma: “Wow! So what are we gonna do today? Is there a program of sorts or do we just hang out? What kind of music do you listen to? Did you bring any records, Daniel?”

Alice: “Can we go look for a library?”

Much as the human children wanted to visit the mothership, for the “Friends of the Visitors”’s first meeting they went to the aquarium’s basement. In the artificial light down here Daniel removed his sun glasses and cap, what made the Visitor look both more approachable and less cool.

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Daniel: “Which of you owns an LCD game?”

Emma: “I have a Microvision. It’s lame. But we’ve got a home computer!”

Daniel: “And we have these. Go on, try them out!”

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Cole: “Oh, neat!”

Emma: “I’m so glad you brought the videogames! I was afraid we’d have to learn stuff here. You know, like in the girlscouts.”

Daniel: “Oh, you’ll learn stuff alright. Soon as the new captain has signed my lesson and excursion plan.”

Emma: “The new captain? What’s wrong with Amanda? Is it because she’s a girl?”

Daniel: “No, I meant that Amanda is the new captain. Because… we… uh… got shuffled around before entering orbit, so that everyone got assigned to the geographical region they liked to be in the most. That’s why.”

Cole: “And you wanted to come to Detroit of all places?”

Daniel: “Not specifically. Just the Great Lakes in general. Supreme Commander John sent us to your city literally the last minute.”

Cole: “Oh, he did? He must really hate you guys!”

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Elsa: “This isn’t even a REAL tele-game. Videogames are played with your fingers only, you don’t have to hop around!”

Pierce: “But it’s fun!”

Elsa: “Yes!”

Visitor-Human relations continued…

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Emma: “Say, Daniel… you wouldn’t be interested in buying a car, would you?”

Daniel: “What?!”

Emma: “Thought so. Sorry. I promised dad to ask you. We own a car dealership, and he hopes to expand his customer pool.”

Daniel: “You kidding, little Emma? Of course I want a car! Having your own car means freedom to go wherever I want whenever I want! Tood bad we are trained at totally different vehicles. The city council doesn’t let us drive human cars.”

Emma: “So if mom and dad offered driving lessons to aliens that came in an UFO, would that be helpful? In addition to sound stupid?”

Daniel: “Yes to both!!! I take it your parents gave you their calling card to give me?”

Emma: “Yeah… here you go!”

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Alice: “Is it true that humans eat all the time?”

Emma: “Who told you that?”

Alice: “I don’t remember. But I heard that when you are tired, you take a quick snack and can go on. You don’t have to rest in the sun.”

Emma: “Oh, you must mean coffee! That’s a real thing. But it doesn’t really give energy, it just makes your brain forget that you are tired.”

Daniel: “One sugar rush coming up, ladies!” (to himself:) “And probably diarrhea.”

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Eustace: “What’s so cool about this place, Cole? It’s just a public aquarium, but you act as if drinking lemonade in the basement is the bees knees!”

Cole: “Oh, right, you can’t know that! During the prohibition this basement was a Speakeasy. People came here to drink alcohol in secret, when the government had outlawed doing so.”

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Eustace: “That’s scary, Cole! The government being able to tell you what and what not to eat!“

Cole: “Well, I guess they only forbid stuff that is bad for you.”

Eustace: “Like…?”

Cole: “Like… chocolates… oh, plum! You’re right, Eustace! It’s a VERY scary thought!”

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Cole: “Let’s see what you’re really made of now!”

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Eustace: “I’ll crush you!”

Cole: “I’ll smash you!”

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Cole: “Loser has to eat a whole… hm.. oh, I know! A whole live snail!”

Cole didn’t notice it, but suddenly Eustace didn’t focus on winning anymore...

None of the children, Human or Visitor, noticed that Daniel carefully monitored their progress in the skill game or that he was saving their results in the system. To them the man’s scrutinizing glare passed for the typical “adult looking important” mimic. As for the saved numbers, who didn't want to show off their High Scores later? There was nothing suspicious here.

After everyone had tried the videogames, Daniel took the group into town. First order of business was clothes shopping for Eustace and Alice, only Daniel, the adult, kept his uniform. He explained it was on the Supreme Commander’s orders…

“…to alleviate feelings of inferiority in the face of a space faring civilization by pretending that for all our achievements at least we have no fashion sense whatsoever.”

The sarcasm in the Visitor’s speech was dripping like acid, a stern contrast to the aliens’ usual amiable demeanor. The children couldn’t help but smirk. This man was “their” Visitor, their very own and slightly rebellious alien from outerspace who couldn’t wait to lay his hands on a driver’s license.

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“Anyway, let’s eat now! Let’s see where… Ah, this would be the right place!”

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Eustace: “Awesome!!! I like colorful fish so much!”

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Daniel: “So how does this work? Where do we place an order? Or do we take something ourselves and carry it to the cashier’s desk?”

Cole: “Daniel! This is a pet shop!”

Daniel: “It is?”

Cole: “Surely you must have seen that there are rats and hamsters here? You don’t think humans EAT those?”

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Focus… Food!

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Focus… Food! Food!

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Cole: “You aren’t saying anything, Daniel? Are you angry at me?”

Focus… focus… focus… Fooooooood!!!

Cole: “There’s a sushi bar upstairs. Its sign can easily get mistaken as leading to the pet shop. It’s a joke ‘round here.”

Daniel: “Yes! Upstairs! Now!”

Cole: “Maaan, you’re shivering! Living on protein bars on your space ship must be a bummer. But now it’s real food again for you.”

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Daniel: “So that’s a sushi bar. What can one eat here?”

Cole: “Almost raw fish seasoned with vinegar and wrapped in algae leaves.”

Eustace: “Oh, please, Daniel! Can we try almost raw fish the way the humans eat it? Please, please, please!”

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Daniel: “Okay, sounds good. Find seats, everybody, I’ll place an order.”

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And so children of both planets sat down to eat onigiri while enjoying a splendid view over Spice Market.

Eustace: “Why’s my fish in algae leaves not twitching anymore? Is it dead?”

Cole: “Of course it’s dead! For real, you Visitors have some odd concepts of how we eat here on Earth!”

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Some tastes take some serious getting used to…

Daniel: Ugh… can’t even tell whether I’m eating head or tail here…

Alice: Hm...

Eustace: Ugh… poor fishies… did they boil them or what?!

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Cole: “And? How was it?”

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Alice didn’t let me make up something, she made sure to throw me a thought bubble that made her preferences absolutely clear: Food that doesn’t struggle anymore is best food!

Alice: “Amazing! That was the best meal I ever had! Thank you for bringing us here, Cole!”

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Alice: “Can we always eat like this, Daniel?”

Eustace: “Somebody please shoot me…”

Chapter 2: The Scientist Conspiracy

Time passed. While the Visitors where sharing secrets of their advanced medicine with humanity and worldviews were challenged, some things remained the same. Small scale crime, for example, had neither dropped nor increased in number. Therefore for the DPD detectives the daily grind continued…

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Gavin: “…although I swear there are fewer rats in the streets nowadays. Speaking of little rats, shouldn’t it be your weekend with Cole?”

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Hank: “Yeah. But the kid is so absorbed in his Friends of the Visitors group that he hardly knows his family anymore. Can’t even blame him. The only thing that’s better than spaceships at this age are dinosaurs, after all.
I’m glad Cole learns not just how to push buttons that make shiny tech light up, but also solid character values during those get togethers. Still…”

Gavin: “Yeah, I feel you. I miss my brother, too.”

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Hank: “Still no word of him? Or of Chloe?”

Gavin: “Nah. But on the other hand, radio silence from Elijah is nothing new. He always was a bit of a recluse.”

Hank: “Still, you sound worried…”

Gavin: “You know El, he’s a nutcase, the very model of a mad scientist. It’s guys like him who give scientists a bad reputation.”

Hank: “Ugh, don’t start me on that! One or two overzealous researchers cross the boundaries of decency with the Visitors and rightfully get mauled by the law of two planets, and suddenly the whole populace goes “Ew, all scientists evil!”. It’s stupid, but that’s humans for you.”

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Gavin: “So what should I be more worried about: El getting arrested by Amanda, the Visitors getting cut apart by El or my job security from being related to a scientist?”

Hank: “Job secu… come again?!”

Gavin: “I’m not joking, Hank! The Chief warned me about “continuing my ways”, never mind that “my ways” are sharing half of my dna with Elijah. And Captain Fowler doesn’t assign us any high profile cases anymore. Things are spiraling out of control. Even for the standards of this city!”

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While Gavin looked up to the ever looming presence of the UFO over Detroit, Hank tried to chain the most recent developments together:

“So I don’t get high profile cases anymore because you, my partner, are the half-brother of a scientist, because there is an alleged scientist-conspiracy against the Visitors? I should drop you for my own good - that about right?”

“Uh-huh, that sums it up. I wonder… I wonder if it were better if those plummers packed up and rode home!”

“Haha! Spoken like a true scientist conspiracy member! I shouldn’t just drop you, but also report you to the authorities!”

Hank laughed it off, but truth was that Gavin would have gotten in trouble for real, had he made his frustrated remark in, say, a bar. It was frightening.